


Grass Doesn't Grow in Space

by for_t2



Category: A Memory Called Empire - Arkady Martine
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Diplomacy, Dissociation, Enemies On Good Terms, F/F, Lovers To Enemies, Loyalty, Lsel Station, Poetry of a sort, Promises, Space Empires, Space Stations, Spies & Secret Agents, Teixcaalani Politics, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-03
Updated: 2020-11-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 22:08:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,448
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27373972
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/for_t2/pseuds/for_t2
Summary: Love in the World means betrayal and love in the Station means never letting go, and if that means letting Three Seagrass bring the war to Lsel, then Mahit would fight
Relationships: Mahit Dzmare/Three Seagrass
Kudos: 6





	Grass Doesn't Grow in Space

There was a beautiful poetry to Three Seagrass’s lips. Or, at least, there would’ve been if Mahit’s thoughts weren’t so completely immersed in kissing them. In kissing her. Two years apart, two years of only intermittent contact, had been two years too long.

When she had left the City, she had been worried that there would come a day when she wouldn’t want to leave, and maybe that fear was founded. She hadn’t all spent all of the two years alone, but there wasn’t anyone like Three Seagrass on Lsel. There wasn’t anyone who had the same easy flow of Teixcaalani, the same grin while exchanging verses, the same almost perverse thrill at the thought of epic danger.

And besides, it just felt good to have her in her arms (or maybe Mahit was in her arms – the distinction had been lost some time ago). It just felt good to see her again, to kiss her again, to feel the warmth of her skin and the beating of her… 

Her heart which was beating a little too quickly. A little too desperately.

And not in a good way.

“Hey.” With not inconsiderable difficultly (especially when Three Seagrass was so willing), Mahit managed to pull herself out of the kiss. “What’s wrong?”

“The emptiness between the stars and the trees only grows wider with every passing storm.” Three Seagrass mumbled as she immediately tried to press herself back towards Mahit.

And that’s when Mahit really knew something was wrong. “That…” That wasn’t great. “You can do better.”

“Ugh,” Three Seagrass groaned most unpoetically and slumped down on Mahi’s shoulder. “I know.” And now, it was definitely her the one in Mahit’s arms. “I’ve been here for five days and I still haven’t found my rhythm. Not with you, not with anybody.”

Mahit gently lifted Three Seagrass’s head up to talk with her eyes. To plant a quick kiss on her forehead. “Want to talk about it?” It took every bit of Mahit’s diplomatic prowess not to sigh when Three Seagrass gave her one of those frustratingly Teixcaalani half-shrugs. “If anyone on Lsel is making you feel uncomfortable…”

“It’s not anyone. It’s…” Three Seagrass glanced away from Mahit and quickly around the small pod-room of Mahit’s quarters. “It’s the station. It’s so small and closed and monotone and it smells wrong!”

Mahit’s diplomatic prowess couldn’t stop a small chuckle from escaping her lips at the pure imperial indignation in her voice.

“I’m serious.” Fortunately, Three Seagrass didn’t seem offended. “How do you live like this? With…” She just glanced up again at the walls and, almost imperceptibly, trembled. “With no plants, no water, just recycled and nothing but a thin slice of metal between you and the void every second of your lives? It’s…”

“Barbaric?”

“It’s terrifying.” She pulled back a little from Mahit, just enough for the space between them to emphasise the words, but not too far. “I like aliens, but…”

“Well, your trip here doesn’t have to be long. As Lsel ambassador, I could be just as useful in the City as on the station.” Mahit tried to inject a little bit of hope into her tone, a little bit of questioning. She didn’t want Three Seagrass to leave, but she would be a lot more useful to her serving as ambassador in the City instead of just another member of Lsel’s heritage committee. Besides, it had been two years.

“I…” It looked like Three Seagress was rolling the words around on her tongue, and Mahit was hit by a sudden pang of… wanting that tongue somewhere deeper. Fully integrating with Yksandr had done surprising things to her ability to flirt. “I don’t think that would be a good idea.”

Mahit frowned at that. Not just the reluctance in Three Seagrass’s voice, but the way her eyes shifted away from Mahit’s. Away from anything. “Why not?”

“Your station needs you here.”

“That’s not a good reason.” At least, it wasn’t a reason Three Seagrass would give. It wasn’t an argument anyone from Teixcalaanli would use, appealing to a barbarian’s – to an alien’s – sense of nobility, and more than that, appealing to the preservation instinct of an alien world. There was only one world, the World, and the rest was just the future conquests of the world (or, at least, that was Mahit’s best understanding of the Teixcalaani concept of time as it applied to the Empire).

“You’d be safer here.”

Mahit was almost tempted to shout at her not to lie to her. “Does that mean you wouldn’t be safe there?”

Three Seagrass sighed. “It’s been two years Mahit. Things have changed. You’ve changed.” She traced a tender finger across Mahit’s jaw. “He’s in there, isn’t he? He’s a part of you and I can’t understand that.” She sighed again, this time closing her eyes in a way that almost looked like tears, and Mahit was desperately reminded of a time when the Empire seemed on the verge of civil war. “The war’s going badly.”

“How badly?”

“I don’t think it’s going much better for the aliens – the real aliens.” She kept her hand there, almost drawing wandering shapes on Mahit’s cheek. “But very.”

“Is there anything we can do?” More than just a part of Mahit had begun to regret the way she’d saved Lsel’s independence, if that was what it meant.

“Your station would never help an Empire that could destroy it.” Three Seagrass laughed and it almost sounded bitter. “Your station would never even help an Empire that would lift it higher. The question is if there’s anything you could do for us.”

Something approaching dread was starting to pool at the bottom of Mahit’s spine. “Is there?”

Three Seagrass gave her another one of those Teixcaalani shrugs. “The Ministry of Information sent me on a mission to seduce you and use you to steal technology that could help us win this war. We know that your station is hiding secrets.”

After her return from the City, Mahit had undergo more than a few intensive psychotherapy sessions on avoiding imago disassociation. Hell, after what had happened with Yskandr, she had wanted to become an expert on it. But that didn’t stop a blood-soaked image of Nineteen Adze from seizing her brain.

“I thought it be a romance to challenge our greatest epics. The poems they’d write about us…” The tenderness in Three Seagrass’s smile made Mahit shrink back. “And believe me, Mahit, there isn’t a patrician in the City who doesn’t grow up with a dream called Emperor. Especially the second-class ones.”

Dissociation. Diplomacy. Three Seagrass. It took all of Mahit’s concentration to bring her back into focus on the third of them. To filter the decades of experience in her brain down to a single, most important, question. “Whose idea was it?”

“Mine.”

The calm that followed was enough to sober up the heat out of Mahit’s body. “You shouldn’t be telling me this.”

“The problem, ambassador, is that I don’t just a thing for aliens.” The formal term was said intimately. “I’m in love with an alien. And I want to love the way you do, desperately clinging on to each other, furiously, defiantly against the void and everything against you. I want you, Mahit.” Three Seagrass slumped wistfully. “Am I allowed to be a conservative and a romantic?”

Unexpectedly, inexplicably, Mahit laughed. There was something so Teixcaalani about the logic that made more than perfect sense. That made her want to kiss Three Seagrass even more. “You know I’ll have to report you to the Council?”

“I know.” Three Seagrass nodded. “But I don’t know what to do about us.”

“You love the Empire.” Mahit took her hand. Gave it a squeeze. “You make it beautiful, and I wouldn’t want to stop you from that.”

Three Seagrass squeezed back. “I don’t want to stop you from loving your station.” After a second, she added teasingly. “Even if you are barbarians.”

Mahit didn’t want to break the comfortable silence that followed, the way their interlaced hands felt right, but eventually she did. She leaned forward and kissed Three Seagrass and held the kiss for a second too long. “I guess you better try your best then.”

“As long as you try yours.” There was a hope there that Mahit hadn’t heard in a long time.

“You have my word, my askretim.” She didn’t need to add the possessive, but it was worth it to see Three Seagrass’s smile one last time before the war came to Lsel.

And, in any case, she had a feeling it wouldn't be long before the station received a call to send an ambassador to the City.


End file.
